I’m not sure what’s more appealing to me, the truck or the beautiful artwork in this advertisement. The Peterbilt 451 was only sold in small quantities, perhaps only to the carrier shown in the ad, Ringsby. The design allowed a very short bumper-to-back-of-cab, or BBC dimension, enabling a sleeper yet leaving room for a high volume truck box for low density loads such as empty containers, on the tractor. This configuration is known as a dromedary – like the camel. Drom for short.
Here’s a photo of the real thing. Not quite as eye-catching as the advertisement. These were built in 1956. Freightliner offered a similar design, starting a few years earlier.
Would have liked to seen interior pictures to show how access was gained. I imagine these would be cramped for taller driver? 🙂
Don’t think so. The lower cab is the same height as the regular Peterbilt COE cab.
I guess there were no low trestle bridges or overpasses at this time!
It’s no taller than the standard height trailer it’s pulling.
My biggest nightmare I drove a Mack Midliner in the early 90’s for wall street journal Princeton NJ to Binghamton NY 2 nights a week my fear, night route 5 nights Napa auto parts jersey shore run . It had the combo air/hydrologic brakes if you had to stop in a emergency what ever you hit would not survive chances are you wouldnt either. The pay was unreal at 19 i made close to what i do now.what a fool to let that one go long point if you are asked to run a Mack Mid Liner refuse
I was thinking the same thing. Very well-rendered illustration, of a clever design. I suspect the artist used vellum paper, and ink pens, to trace a photograph. Creating the illustration. Extremely popular, and marketable technique, into the 80s. The Peterbilt logo has aged well.
Reading the ad and looking at the pictures it says it has a midship horizontal Cummins engine. So kind of more a mid engine truck then a cabover, which actually makes it even cooler.
Good point. One can of course see the intake plumbing on the driver side in the photo. This architecture seemed to be a dead end for Peterbilt; the one history book of the brand in my library includes it in a list of all model numbers, but has no other detail other than the year, 1956. Another reference I found online mentioned a similar model 356, and said that only about 60 of the 356 and 451 mid-engined trucks were built.
Yeah I tried for a few minutes to dig up more details on line there isn’t much out there.
Mid engines mounted in the frame were a thing back then, as many buses had them at the time. Cummins and others made “lay-down” engines that were on their sides for that kind of application, so it’s not surprising that trucks would use them too.
Fageol was a pioneer in this type of application, and also used them in some of their trucks:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/trucks-and-heavy-equipment/truck-stop-classics-1952-fageol-super-freighter-the-definitive-50s-moving-van/
Indeed, although the layout achieved its greatest popularity in Germany through the efforts of Büssing-NAG. Here’s something from the parallel world.
The Denver Nuggets of the NBA began life as the Denver “Ringsby System” Rockets.
Perhaps this sort of design presaged the “modern” FedEx “Custom Critical” trucks I got very used to seeing during the latter stages of my career in “Big Pharma”? We used them for refrigferated shipments of the hemophila drugs (and others) we made. Impressive, and presumably contractor-owned, rigs.
Getting in & out of the cab looks like a fun task especially if there is rain, snow or ice around. Throw in a long day at work and that’s a real recipe for disaster. OSHA would have these trucks impounded.
These were pioneering designs, with their mid-low mounted engines and dual front axles. Although the concept didn’t catch on in the US, the dual front axles became quite common in some European jurisdictions.
American truck operators were a conservative bunch, for understandable reasons, as servicing something new was a potential headache.
Twin steer is the norm in this country especially American brands and has been for some time I drive a Freightliner Century tanker daily its a 8×4 towing a 8 wheel drawbar trailer, with the advent of HPMV permits 6 wheeler trucks and tractor units got phased out in favour of more weight capacity, the biggest drawback is the ride for the driver, its awful when 6×4 truck/tractors used to be good.
Want a really scary ride? try a 8×4 + trailer @44 tonnes and a roundabout and the two steering boxes not acting in concert suddenly, and knowing there 20km of hilly twisting highway coming up. Ive had better days.
xr7, Im convinced that is the #1 reason cabovers fell out of favor once length laws were elimnated.
Think about the average trucker, middle aged, overweight with bad knees or back. Then when its icy, they slip, fall, hurt themselves getting out of a cabover. Trucking company has to pay a workers comp claim, then they also have a driver who is out of work not earning them $$$$ Conventional trucks are just three or four easy steps up into the cab.
Really interesting idea with that Peterbilt, I wonder if any of them survived to the current day. Would be amazing to see a restored one at a truck show
The issue is the set-forward front axle.
Its not forward set, Mack just hadnt figured out a climbing wall ladder system like Kenworth did yet.
I just had to look that up, of course. Kenworth’s ACE-system (Active Cab Entry).
“Peterbilts are Betterbuilt”. I can’t remember reading that slogan ever before, a nice one! I didn’t know of the 451 either. The Coleman Space Star came to mind though.
Pacific Intermountain Express had something similar, but they may have created them in their own shops.
Please tell me there was a pole to slide down from the sleeper to the driver’s seat.
“Let gravity put you in the driver’s seat”
I drove a MAN 19-321 in the early eighties through Europe
It had a 320 HP underfloor mid engine,Fuller 13 speed gearbox and air ride on all axles Wich really gave it great driving performance..The only bad thing about this truck was te cab bbc Wich was only 37 inch and as we called it ,
A topsleeper on its roof .no insulation or storage room
In it . You could have them built on every European brand as an after market item, only DAF had their own diseign sleeper Wich had a much higher standard of quality than it
Competitors.. personally i am glad this topsleeper concept is mainly history now, although I always quite apealling as a truck
Oh I remember those. Volvo also had its own short Globetrotter version I believe although it was very rare.
Something like this, I assume.
The only top sleepers these days are mounted on top of the roof of light trucks from eastern-Europe. Like the MB Sprinter, Renault Master and Iveco Daily.
They’ve become history on heavy long distance trucks, no need for those ultra short day cabs with a top sleeper any longer, given the current lenght legislation.
Interesting design way better than the coffin sleepers they had back in the day you fall asleep and you don’t wake up underneath because the people kept on getting carbon monoxide poisoning while they’re in the sleeper